Jack Pelham

Once he decided to forgive her incorrigible sins—
For conviction that such is the right mind
To have about one’s fellow human—
He quickly found himself quite
Disinterested in rehearsing
The lot of them any
Longer with his
Confidants,
For there
Was
No
Point in it.

God forbid that Jesus should ever adopt any
Non-negotiable opinion about some matter of religion,
For if he did, how could he possibly be the all-accepting sponsor
To all the disagreeing camps who insist on calling themselves his own?

If no one were afraid
To tell a friend the truth
We could all be blessed by it—
Except, of course
That not many always
Consider the truth to be
A blessing.

She gives in buckets—
Pouring herself out daily
Even though she totally
Knows the routine by now—
That when he gives
It’s usually with an eyedropper,
And even then, it’s
Only when he finds it
Strategically necessary.

And he does his best
Not to think anything
Of the huge difference
Between them,
For if he did,
It might prick his conscience.
And that, he thinks,
Must be avoided
At all costs.

And she does her best
Not to think anything
Of the huge difference
Between them,
For if she did,
It might tweak her pride.
And that, she thinks,
Must be avoided
At all costs.

So she still gives in buckets.

And I cannot help
But to compare them both
To myself.
And I am in between
And deeply convicted
That I do not
Give in buckets
More often.

NOTE: He routinely decouples from his conscience, while she routinely decouples from her pride. It is a fundamental difference in paradigms.

What is yours
Is not.

Not really.

At some point
You have to let it all go
And settle accounts
With the owner
Of all things.

America could not stand
To fight the losing battle
In time of war.

When you’re dealing with things
That most would rather ignore,
Don’t be surprised if it’s hard
To find good conversation
About it.

For all you know, you may be
The first among your friends
To take it seriously.

Having already declared to himself
His glorious intentions for the week,
He dismisses the wasted day
As a mere trifle,
And with the wave of a hand—
Not counting it as a lost seventh part
Of a heavenly treasure,
But rather twistedly,
As if its murder were somehow a proper and fitting
Sacrifice to the honor of the whole.

And I should unapologetically
Think the man insane
Even if he were me.

As I scan the scriptures, I see that
God has chosen to measure by eternity
And sometimes by ages—
And by millennia
And generations
And lifetimes.

I fight the battle against the flesh—
To keep it in check—
To not “let myself go”—
To swim against the tide of a sloppy society
And live by good principle and wisdom
Rather than merely by fleshly desire
And convenience
And unvetted assumption.